Many volunteers and Spice Time Credit users recently had an unexpected and very welcome trip to the ballet Sleeping Beauty. Wales Millennium Centre had generously offered tickets to be used by members of the community who could ‘pay’ with their well earned Time Credits. The tickets were quickly taken up and many had to admit that they had never seen a ballet and some had never visited the WMC before so what an opportunity this was to get close up and personal to a fabulous performance.

But this was no ordinary Sleeping Beauty. The Matthew Bourne production was full of colour, movement and energy performed to the well known music by Tchaikovsky. It was a gothic tale for all ages, a love story fraught with curses and spells. The costumes were outstanding, from the very first scene setting the christening of Aurora with a life-like puppet of the baby girl drawing in the audience from the beginning. We watched as the familiar fairy tale of a young girl cursed to sleep for one hundred years was enacted and danced through various scenes.

As Aurora grows up, we were taken through the fashions of the day, including a genteel tennis game followed by afternoon tea on the lawn, watching the antics of her suitors as they tried to gain her attention. Years later, when Aurora wakes up, we are in the modern world, still beset with many temptations and sinister goings-on.

It was an outstanding performance, full of magic, fairies, vampires, love and romance, danced by incredible dancers . There was certainly no falling asleep during this performance.

Thank you once again to the Wales Millennium Centre for giving us the opportunity to experience a beautiful and amazing ballet.